![[option 1] image for](../media/res/soil.svg)
Get back to basics, simplify. Break it down. Relax, unwind and get back to the elements. The adventurous life of a Honey Badger can’t last forever. Break it, break it down, mic check, yo yo, yo and explore amazing forms of carbon for the next several thousands year. Come, dig the SOIL.
Go through the process of DECOMPOSITION.
[Organic matter is capable of decay.] After the badger dies it becomes food for microorganisms in the soil. Carbon dioxide is released as they break the body down into simpler forms. That carbon moves through the soil as its flesh, blood, and bones are broken down into smaller and smaller and smaller pieces by bacteria and fungi. Some of the carbon stored in the badger's body is used as energy by the microorganisms as they decompose it bit by bit. Some is left behind for others to eat.
The carbon that was originally organized into complex organic forms by plants, then passed through animals, provides nutrients for microscopic organisms as they break it back down into a smorgasbord or simpler forms.
C6H12O6 => 2C2H5OH + 2C02
Sugar => Ethanol + Carbon Dioxide
Complex organic molecules are broken down to simpler forms in the process of decomposition.
Learn much more with Wikipedia: Decomposition, Decomposer
![[option 2] image for](../media/res/atmosphere.svg)
Breathe deeply, badger. A wild leopard has followed the trail of honey and the tears of your prey. It's time for fight or flight. Honey Badgers can only live through so many fights. Carbon, come, soar free! Drift into the ATMOSPHERE.
Go through the process of RESPIRATION.
As a carbon atom in a sugar, you'll be burned up for energy in the badger's muscle, joining two oxygen atoms, then travel through the bloodstream to the lungs to be breathed out into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. This is the primary way that carbon leaves living bodies after being useful. It's the releasing
Respiration releases the energy originally stored in sugar by photosynthesis in a plant, eaten by an animal and used to build its body. It's really the reverse of photosynthesis. Carbon in sugar reacts with oxygen to form carbon dioxide and water, releasing chemical energy. The carbon dioxide produced travels until it's breathed out into the atmosphere. Job well done.
The carbon dioxide animals breathe in from the atmosphere simply gets breathed right back out. It doesn't get used to build bodies, nor for energy.
[comes in as food, used to build body, burned, respired]
C6H12O6 + 6O2 => 6CO2 + 6H2O + energy
Sugar+ Oxygen => Carbon Dioxide + Water + Energy
Living things burn sugar to release energy in the process of respiration.
Learn much more with Wikipedia: Respiration_(physiology)
You are Carbon in an Animal
What an active lifestyle. Brain, paw, protein, DNA, ... what role in life don't we play? Seems we never stay in one place for long. It's getting hard to hack this pace. As carbon in the honey badger some may say, “this is as good as it gets!” Put up against any competitor, you’re sure to win all bets.
Carbon compounds play many roles in living things. Some carbon compounds are stored as sources of chemical energy, like carbohydrates; some act as the building blocks of bodies, like proteins. Within the animal, carbon exists in many complex forms in muscle, blood, bone, and brain matter. Every part, every cell contains carbon. In bodies carbon mixes in many forms of compounds with many different chemical partners: hydrogen, nitrogen, phosphates, sulpher, iron and other combine with carbon in complicated and varied ways.
When a badger eats any form of plant material some of the carbon fixed through photosynthesis is then integrated into the badgers life cycle, used as energy or turned in badger body parts. All the carbon the badger is made from come through photosynthesis in plants via the food web.
The human body is composed mostly of organic carbon compounds—protein, fat and carbohydrate—and water.
64% water, 20% protein, 10% fat, 1% carbohydrate, 5% minerals.
Bodies of animals are 30% carbon dry weight.
Learn much more with Wikipedia: Carbon-based_life, Herbivore
